The world today faces the challenge of accommodating global population growth and aspirations for improved living standards while simultaneously diminishing the environmental impact associated with economic activity. Breaking the link between economic growth and environmental stress, especially within the time frame needed to forestall lasting climate degradation, will require the development of a comprehensive perspective in planning for future power generation.

Renewable power will play an increasing role in meeting this challenge, but it brings its own complications: relatively high capital cost, intermittent power production, and generation patterns that are often misaligned to the market’s load patterns. Battery storage may provide a satisfactory solution to some of these problems in the long term, but likely not within the time frame relevant to power planners today as they shape the next two decades of power generation.

For practical purposes, planners aiming to enable an expansion of renewable power must draw from a limited repertoire of supporting generation technologies, and, within this repertoire, gas generation offers clear advantages in operational flexibility and emission performance. In this sense, a natural partnership exists between renewables and gas. However, in many markets, gas is more expensive than other fossil fuels, infrastructure is constrained, and substantial sums have already been invested in coal generation. The merits of the renewables-gas partnership must therefore be assessed in specific market contexts.

The purpose of this webinar is to explore how different market conditions can affect this partnership and highlights advantages of natural gas as a partner for renewables, covering: cost, flexibility, emissions, optionality, reliability, security of supply, supporting non-power sectors and decentralised energy systems.

This webinar will be presented on July 8th at 10 am SST, 9 am ICT, and 10 pm EST (July 7th).

The Chatham House Rule will apply to this webinar and will be closed to media. Participants are encouraged to visit ChathamHouse.org if they are not familiar with the rule.